WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Ophidian of the Apocalypse ◈
Chapter 124: I Want to Be Friends
──────
The dungeon was large.
After searching carefully, I found emergency rations scattered everywhere.
Most of those “emergency rations,” however, were meant to nourish the chimeras.
It was a powder that turned thick when mixed with water, and it tasted horrible.
So I stored some in my ring's Subspace. It would serve as emergency food someday.
There was also a little food that had belonged to Pelerian.
Even with Preservation Magic on it, too much time had apparently passed.
There was not much left that was edible.
Still, there were things like honey, spices, and tea leaves, so I took some.
The furniture Pelerian had likely used was made of wood.
I took a few chairs and broke them apart myself.
Then I set them on fire.
That gave me a campfire.
The important thing was finding an iron plate to cook the meat on.
There was nothing suitable.
So I tore off a crystal panel from the control room.
I thought it might work as a grill.
Honestly, since I was a monster, I could have swallowed the meat raw without a problem.
But this was about the mood, wasn't it?
Besides, these chimeras were so ugly that they really did not whet my appetite.
I needed to cook them thoroughly before they would seem remotely edible.
First, I peeled off the tough hide and cut up the torso.
Slice.
Once I cleaned out the organs, it looked rather like a butchered fish.
At this point, I could call it a bone-in steak.
I sprinkled on the salt and spices I had.
The spices were dried herbs, and Pelerian had said they cost more than the same weight in gold.
They smelled similar to rosemary.
I placed the meat on the heated crystal plate.
Sssssizzle!
The fat melted out of the meat, making a wonderful sound.
It would've been even better with some butter.
Grilling meat like this reminded me of the past.
Of when I had escaped Medusa Mom's nest and fallen into the Akam Basin.
'Well, compared to back then, this is a huge improvement.'
When was the first time I grilled meat after being born as a snake?
I think it was after escaping Pelerian's first dungeon.
I had gone to all kinds of trouble, digging a hole in the ground, putting charcoal and heated stones underneath, and covering it all so the smoke wouldn't rise and catch someone's eye.
There hadn't even been any salt on it, but it had tasted incredible.
I don't remember what meat it was, but it had melted in my mouth.
Compared to that, I was living in luxury now.
At least this was seasoned steak.
Even if the ingredient was chimera.
According to something I saw on YouTube long ago, thick meat needed to rest so it would cook evenly inside.
After browning both sides, I moved the steak aside.
I planned to practice rolling while I waited.
But then.
-Wait a moment.
Pelerian was trying to make me do something again.
-Turn that command pin, then click twice to the right and three times down.
Since voice recognition couldn't be used, operating the Magical Spirit was no easy task.
When I carefully worked the machinery in the control room as though entering a complex code...
The Magic Spirit responded.
-No recorded logs.
Then Pelerian abruptly lost his temper.
-Damn it!
'What were you doing?'
-I was checking whether my original body had left behind a journal. To think there are no logs either...
Pelerian was having worries and reflections of his own.
The Pelerian from when he was alive had supposedly tried to switch to a chimera body because he feared death.
It must have been a terrible shock for Pelerian, who seemed to be the embodiment of arrogance and pride.
But only amateurs sat down and gave up there.
The best would try to uncover the truth.
Pelerian truly was a first-rate villain.
-There may be more chimeras, but there were no empty tanks. I think it was definitely an incomplete experiment.
'Well, the last chimera certainly...'
It wasn't wrong.
Of course, Pelerian's hopes might have been mixed into it.
-And I overlooked something more important.
'What's more important?'
-So did I die in the end? Why is there no corpse?
According to what Pelerian remembered, he had planned to return to this dungeon when death approached.
If he suffered a fatal injury, he would be forcibly teleported to the dungeon.
If his lifespan ran out, he contracted a fatal disease, or he was poisoned with deadly venom, he planned to come to the dungeon on his own.
If Pelerian had died under either of those circumstances,
shouldn't his corpse be here at the very least?
'That ruin said you were killed by humans last time, old man.'
-That record was unreliable.
'What if you died before you could teleport here?'
-Hmm...
Pelerian let out a low groan.
None of the possibilities were entirely impossible. That only made it more confusing.
Still, there was something that needed to be firmly considered.
-When we transmitted a signal from the Magic Stone storage in the Palamu Rainforest.
At that dungeon, Pelerian noticed that the transmission function was directed toward Delphram.
-The gathered information definitely went to Delphram.
The dungeon's information had been set to go to wherever Pelerian's original body was.
Since it had clearly arrived here, Pelerian had assumed that his original body was dead.
'But there is no corpse here.'
There was no sign of Pelerian's dead body.
'Where exactly did the signal go? Did you walk around with a chip implanted in your head or something?'
-I had a receiver that I carried with me.
'Maybe it's somewhere in here?'
But no receiver was in sight either.
-There may be a hidden space.
A hidden space not even shown on the map available in the control room?
Maybe there was one.
It seemed that the Pelerian before my eyes had lost his memories of this dungeon.
'Ah!'
-What? Did you remember something?
'No, I think the meat is getting cold.'
Pelerian's face twisted.
Still, people had to eat to live, didn't they?
The chimera steak I had moved onto the crystal plate.
It looked wonderfully cooked.
When I cut into the steak with my dagger,
its cross section was a beautiful pink.
“Saaak!” (Bon appétit.)
I didn't need to cut it up and eat it like a human.
Nor did I need to swallow it without tasting it, like an ordinary snake.
Crunch.
A Crystal Crown Python was good at biting things apart, after all.
The perfectly medium-rare chimera steak was tender enough to bite through.
It was very juicy.
Mm.
No matter how I tried to dress it up, I couldn't call it delicious.
Terrible beef >>>>> rotten chimera rice roll > grilled Mosquito Rat >>> gray cave cricket.
That was about right.
Of course, I was an excellent snake who didn't complain about food, so I quietly finished the steak.
They said what was good for the body tasted bitter. Maybe it was good for my Health?
Twitch, twitch.
Isil seemed very envious of it.
Isil was currently sitting in a small flowerpot.
Usually, they clung to my body, but whenever they rested like this, they always went into their pot.
Isil seemed to consider the flowerpot their room.
Isil even used the pot at mealtimes.
'Fine. I'll share some with you too.'
I tore the steak into small pieces and placed them in Isil's pot.
Anyone who knew gardening or farming would have slapped me on the back, asking what kind of ridiculous snake behavior this was.
But it worked well for Isil.
The pieces of meat I put in the flowerpot slowly sank beneath the soil.
Isil seemed able to absorb them easily if I tore them up and cooked them first. This carnivorous plant!
After eating,
and thinking things over with Pelerian, I must have noticed it a little late.
“Saaak!”
I jumped in surprise while looking at the minimap, or rather, the crystal panel.
Two life signals were repeatedly coming together and moving apart.
What were they doing?
The two most likely possibilities came to mind.
First possibility.
Two chimeras were playing a game where they shared one Pepero stick.
Second possibility.
They were fighting.
They could play the Pepero game, but there probably was no Pepero in this world, so that was impossible.
Then they had to be fighting.
I couldn't let one side's experience points steal the experience points from the other side.
'Let's go, Isil!'
By now, we understood each other perfectly.
Isil sprang out of their flowerpot and stuck tightly to me.
'We ate well, so it's time for some exercise after dinner.'
I knew the layout of this dungeon well by now.
The place where they were was a jar-shaped room.
As I hurried through the corridor toward it,
I heard the sound of fighting ahead.
Thump! Crash!
I didn't immediately rush out shouting, “You bastards!”
First, I needed to see who they were.
If it was something like that Dancer chimera, I needed to find out how strong it was first...
“Kwirook, kwirurook.”
“Mututututu!”
The chimeras here certainly had distinctive cries.
The ballerina wasn't there.
Instead, there was this.
──────────────
【Test Subject No. 2 One-Leg Lv. 40】
──────────────
A one-legged friend with only one leg.
──────────────
【Test Subject No. 7 Dullahan Lv. 50】
──────────────
And... a headless friend.
Dullahans were famously undead monsters.
In old works like DaX Mage and the like, they were depicted as undead monsters second only to Death Knights.
A headless warrior, or knight.
A monster that fought while charging around with its own head tucked under its arm.
It certainly had an appearance that stirred human fear.
So did this chimera also carry its head under its arm?
It was a little different.
It was true that there was no head above its neck.
Instead, its head had grown out of its side.
Other than that, all four limbs were fairly intact.
“Mututututu!”
Its face looked almost human, but judging by that cry, it didn't seem to have a brain.
The One-Leg facing it was already covered in blood.
It looked like the Dullahan had beaten it with its bare hands.
'Hmm.'
I watched the two bicker and made my judgment.
They were opponents I could handle.
One-Leg seemed a little fast, and the Dullahan only seemed tough.
Isil had recovered somewhat, so I considered using Hellfire, but...
'Wait, do all their skins look different now?'
The chimeras' skin, including One-Leg's, had originally been smooth and moist.
But now it was dry and looked fairly tough.
-They would not lack resistances. That was something I considered important when making chimeras.
I focused and examined their status windows.
──────────────
【Skills】
...[Slash Resistance Lv. 10], [Heat Resistance Lv. 15], [Lightning Resistance Lv. 10]...
──────────────
No way.
Their resistance setup was quite solid.
Had their resistances been reinforced as their skin dried out?
Hmm. Hellfire would probably still work, but I changed my mind.
I couldn't keep relying only on Isil's Hellfire.
“Saaaak!”
I stepped forward with a booming roar.
Giving off every bit of majesty I could muster.
'Stop fighting each other. You are both my food, so get along.'
That was the intent I tried to convey.
The fighting chimeras paused for a moment.
They looked at me with surprised expressions.
I even prepared myself for them to attack me together.
But surely not...
“Kwirook, kwirurook.”
“Mututututu!”
They completely ignored me and kept fighting.
Apparently, I didn't look that threatening.
Then I had no choice but to show them.
Should I hunt them both at once?
*「You use Giantification Lv. 2.」
I grew large enough to drag them both along at once.
*「You use Black Scales Lv. 3.」
I strengthened my scales so their claws wouldn't hurt me.
Only then did they stop fighting.
Then they looked at me warily.
“Shrrriiit!”
Now you're scared?
Too late, you bastards.
* * *
And then.
The sole surviving human trapped in this dungeon, Jannil Feje.
The snake had wondered where Jannil Feje had gone while looking at the map on the crystal panel.
Seeing a white dot moving especially busily around the map, the snake had guessed that it might be that human.
Surprisingly, that was true.
Jannil really had been running all over the place.
They had no choice.
Jannil Feje was a very experienced ranger, but not a hero who could overcome danger through personal strength alone.
The chimeras trapped in the tanks had awakened and escaped.
Every one of them was horrific.
When the Big Belly chimera killed the doctor, Jannil felt overwhelming fear in that instant.
There were eight others stronger than Big Belly, or roughly as strong as it.
But when the plant attached to the snake spewed horrifying flames, Jannil had nearly wet themself.
They had thrown a net at that thing in an attempt to capture it.
It was a miracle they hadn't died.
They ran desperately.
Only to discover that every door in the dungeon had closed.
“Huff. Huff.”
They wished they had never been assigned this mission in the first place.
No, it was a mission they had not been allowed to refuse. The order bore a purple seal.
Jannil's top-secret mission was to field-test the medicines received from the imperial court.
Even how to use them had been determined.
The first of the medicines was the relatively long-developed Monster Repellent.
It gave off a foul stench that drove monsters away.
Even here in the Demonic Realm, it had proven quite effective.
The important one was the second medicine, the Monster Excitant.
As its name suggested, it was a drug that excited monsters. It was not the kind used to breed animals, but a medicine that made them more savage and cruel.
Its effectiveness would differ depending on how much was used and how long the target was exposed.
Jannil Feje had used it on the wyverns in the Mountain Range.
The instructions had been to use it on Chugota, a monster that had grown old and whose madness had even begun to fade.
Jannil coated prey that wyverns liked with a measured amount of the drug, making Chugota eat it.
A month later, Chugota and her flock of wyverns invaded another wyvern flock.
Another month later, a frenzy of war began to sweep across the entire Mountain Range.
The effect was tremendous.
Perhaps the Empire dreamed of weaponizing monster packs.
As nothing more than a tool, Jannil could not know.
'I need to return alive to complete this mission.'
Jannil hid and moved around desperately.
And they were still alive.
Then they heard the “Saaak!” sound from earlier.
A snake's cry.
They followed the sound and watched from hiding.
“Kwik...”
“Mututu, mutututu...”
A blackened snake slaughtered two chimeras alone before Jannil's eyes.
Truly a merciless
black reaper.
Jannil swallowed.
Their sharp instincts told them.
'I need to get close to that snake.'
Only then would they be able to escape this dungeon alive.
Footnotes:
Pepero is a Korean snack stick. In the Pepero game, two people bite opposite ends of one stick and move closer together.
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
